Meanwhile, with futile pursuits and monotonous waits, the branding dragged slowly along, and suddenly Bowles realized he was hungry. He looked at his watch and saw that it was nearly noon, but he could perceive no symptoms of dinner. He regretted now the insufficient breakfast which he had eaten, remembering with a shade of envy the primitive appetite which had enabled the others to bolt beefsteaks like ravening wolves; also, he resolved to put a biscuit in his pocket the next time he rode out on the circle. But this availed him nothing in his extremity, and as the others sought to assuage their pangs with brown-paper cigarettes he almost regretted the freak of nicety which had kept him from learning to smoke. It was noon now—seven hours since breakfast—and just as he was about to make some guarded inquiries of Brigham the work of branding ceased. The branders, their faces grimed and sweaty and their hands caked with blood, pulled on their heavy shaps and came riding up to the herd; but not to cry: "Release them!"
Odious as these words had become to Bowles, they would have sounded good under the circumstances; but there was more work yet to come. Driving a bunch of old cows to one side for a "hold-up," Henry Lee and his strenuous assistants began cutting out dogie calves. Everything over a year old was fated to become a feeder and, while mothers bellowed and their offspring protested, Hardy Atkins and the best of the cowhands hazed the calves into the hold-up herd. It was a long and tedious operation, involving numerous wearisome chases after calves that wanted their mothers; and when at last it was done and the main herd was released, behold, a lot of cows and undesirables had to be cut back from the hold-up herd. Then the dogies had to be separated into yearlings and "twos"; and when Bowles was about ready to drop off his horse from weakness Henry Lee detailed a bunch of unfortunates to drive up the calves, and turned his pony toward home. To him it was just a little gather while the neighbors were sending in their men; but to Bowles it combined the extreme hardships of a round-up with the rigors of a forty days' fast.
In a way it was all Bowles' fault, too, for he had kept the whole outfit waiting while he made a bluff at riding Dunbar. His resolution to keep his mouth shut stood him in good stead now, for a hungry man is a wolf and will fight if you say a word. There were no gay quips and gags now, no English riding and classic quotations; every man threw the spurs into his horse and started on a run for camp. Wa-ha-lote pulled at the bit a time or two at this, and Bowles did not try to restrain him; he broke into a gallop, free and sweeping as the wind, and the tired cutting horses fell behind; then as the ranch showed up in the distance he settled down to a tireless lope, eating up the hurrying miles until Bowles could have hugged him for joy.
Here was a horse of a thousand—this black, named in an alien tongue Wa-ha-lote—and he longed as he rode into the ranch to give him some token of friendship—a lump of sugar, or whatever these desert horses liked best to eat—in order to hold his regard. So he trotted over to the cook's wagon, being extremely careful not to bob, and asked Gloomy Gus for a lump of sugar. Now Gus, as it happened, was in another bad humor, due to the boys' being an hour or so late, and to a second matter of which Bowles knew nothing; and he did not even so much as vouchsafe an answer to his request.
"I beg your pardon," began Bowles again, when it was evident he was not going to get the sugar. "Perhaps you will give me a biscuit, then. You see," he explained rather shamefacedly, "I am riding this horse for the first time, and he has been so gentle I wanted to give him something. Any little thing, you know, and I shall be glad to pay for it——"
"I am not cookin' fer hawses!" observed Gloomy Gus; but at the same time he glanced apprehensively toward a long pile of cord-wood which flanked his fire to the south; and as if to verify his suspicions a summer hat appeared from behind the tiers of crooked juniper and a lady stepped into view. She was a very beautiful lady, middle-aged and with haunting brown eyes; and the moment she turned them upon Bowles he knew she was Dixie Lee's mother. Not that she looked so much like the elusive Dixie May, but she had the same way with her eyes—and, besides that, she was very contained and quiet, and looked as if she came from the East. She gazed at him for a moment with a kind, motherly air—as if she had heard all he said—and addressed herself to the cook.
"Well, really, Gus," she began, speaking in the low-pitched tones of the drawing-room, "I can't imagine what happens to those eggs. I have over forty hens, and surely they lay more than seven eggs a day. There's one nest, away in there, but——"
"Well, I ain't took none," grumbled Gus, turning sulkily to his pots and kettles; "that's all I got to say."
"Pardon me," broke in Bowles, swinging lightly down from his horse and standing hat in hand, "perhaps I could creep in and——" He smiled as he had smiled at the ladies who attended the Wordsworth Society, and Mrs. Lee glanced at him approvingly.
"Oh, don't trouble yourself," she said politely. "If it were humanly possible to reach them, I am sure they would be gone by now. I didn't mean to blame you at all, Mr. Mosby,"—this to the cook—"but, really, I was trying to save enough eggs to make the boys a cake."